MerchantsOfMisery

joined 3 years ago
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[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago (7 children)

Organizing and directly contesting. Build up dual power and risk upsetting the current system. The Black Panthers did it, John Brown did it, MLK Jr. did it.

Can you be more specific? The examples you have 1) operated on a far more localized scale and dealt with domestic politics compared to international conflict between Israel/Palestine and all the countries involved behind the scenes and 2) The Black Panthers accomplished a great deal, but their overall goals did not come to fruition in the end. Racism is still rampant in America, police brutality against black people is still largely ignored excluding the occasional major outrage (i.e. George Floyd), and the American system is about as capitalist as it gets so the BPs socialist agenda didn't take root at all.

Once Newton and Hampton were gone, so were the Black Panthers. Most leftist organizing I see is unfortunately centralized around a handful of leaders whose followers believe are irreplaceable, which IMO is not a desirable trait for anything involving continuity. Everyone dies, some earlier than others, and having no effective contingency plan is a blunder so many political movements have.

Beyond that, government surveillance is beyond what we've ever seen before. Organizing political action, especially radical political action, gets shut down faster than ever and we don't often talk about it in leftist spaces because usually all that happens is someone gets their door kicked in, arrested, charged, convicted, and basically told "we've put you through one horrible traumatic experience, think carefully if you want to go through this again". We can beat out chests and say "I'm not afraid of shit" but I think the vast majority of leftists a) haven't been in prison and b) haven't a clue about what it's like in there. Prison's no joke and frankly I completely understand why regular ass people, especially those with dependants like kids, are extremely reluctant to organize in any way that could impact their employment/ability to support their loved ones. We live in an age where cracking a joke about Trump can result in a bunch of freak Republicans doing everything they can to get you fired.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago (8 children)

I feel like folks like you practically get off to making bad faith arguments about how regular ass voters are "letting genocide happen" and imply that by not voting, you're doing something effective to stop it.

I have to ask, hypothetically if the Palestinian death toll increased to 60,000 under a Harris presidency, and it increased to 150,000 under a Trump presidency, would you have any preference for one administration over the other if you could go back in time, or do you believe the 90,000+ death difference is meaningless? I'd genuinely like to know your answer to this question because to me it's like telling someone there's no difference between having one leg chopped off and both legs chopped off, and then hearing from some smug person in the back saying "how about we don't chop any legs off?" like it's the idea of the century that nobody has ever thought of before.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

6 downvotes, 0 replies. If you disagree with this person, why not explain why?

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If Trump wins and implements a federal abortion ban that includes giving police the power to monitor any woman moving across state lines, I really wonder if people like this author will feel indifferent about not voting. I agree with many of the points she's making but as much of an unpopular opinion it is among leftist spaces, I can't say I'm a fan of those who choose not to vote in the next election.

What I really don't understand about the author is that she's seemingly making no distinction between the Republican plan for Israel/Palestine and the Democrats' plan for Israel/Palestine. Dems are so far from perfect but good lord, are we really going to sit here and pretend that under a Trump presidency he wouldn't just give Israel free reign to kill as many civilians as they want? And is this the part of the discussion where someone claims that Biden has already done that, and that it couldn't get any worse?

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 22 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The city decided against pursuing legal action against the Sanders and Trump campaigns due to the potential costs, which might have outweighed any potential financial recovery and placed the burden for legal fees on taxpayers, Squire said.

Pathetic. Straight up admitting the city will only go after working class people while leaving rich people off the hook for $80k bills. Pursue legal action and have Trump pay the legal fees of both parties when he loses.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago

Because the GOP's packed with a bunch of simps who genuinely think Trump loves them.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 11 points 11 months ago (9 children)

As bad as reddit is, it does suck that a lot of people who left decided to wipe all their comments/posts too. Huge amount of useful data just gone.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

There's several videos in there of Trump with Esptein but alright. I find it odd that folks downplay this stuff, mostly because I think folks here are online wayyyy more often than the average person who isn't nearly as aware of Trump's connections.

The amount of folks who've heard of the Clinton/Epstein connection but not the Trump/Epstein connection is surprisingly high. I often wonder how often folks here talk to people who aren't leftists.

And obviously part of the video was a bit of humor but got forbid that I guess, damn.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

OP literally said they knocked and there was no answer, FFS

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 87 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (25 children)

Before Signal made the boneheaded move of removing SMS support, it was so much easier for me to pitch the idea of using Signal to my friends and family, most of which eventually did make the shift from SMS to Signal messages for reasons like ease of use when it came to group chats, sending images/videos, voice clips, etc.

But now? Now it's one of those embarrassing moments where I hear back from people basically all saying "your tech recommendations are usually on point but uh, what happened with Signal???" because the app just abruptly stopped supporting SMS and ruined the seamless appeal. SMS support was the perfect way to ease people into shifting towards Signal messages and now the only damn people I know who still know Signal are my most privacy-minded friends/family, while everyone else has switched back to WhatsApp.

Clearly I'm not bitter...😅 But I mean like, come on. I had the most notorious luddites in my social circle make the switch to Signal and they loved it. The shift from SMS to Signal messages was so smooth so many of them didn't even have that "I miss [SMS stuff]", plus they LOVED that Signal could be used on their laptops in addition to their phones. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this annoys me so much.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

You're definitely a white guy lol, thanks for the laugh. You really can't see how being a white guy and having the privilege that comes with that isn't relevant to a discussion about privacy and security, really? Like come on, I'm a POC but as a man, I also am well aware of how ridiculously privileged I am when it comes to being a little careless about my privacy and security.

Never commenting, but only showing votes could result in someone getting doxxed because their up/downvotes could be about regional instances, i.e. their city/state. Why play dumb about what can be used to dox someone? You really think one needs a home address as a starting point to dox someone? Regional plants and their growth stages can be used to dox people who post local photos online without thinking twice about security and while that obviously won't result in a home address right away, breadcrumbs leave a trail. You clearly just haven't thought about this much becaaaaaaause... like I said, privileged white guy that can afford to not consider this stuff.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 months ago

Pfft, speak for yourself 😏I'm too poor to afford a TV.

In all seriousness, I can't afford a TV but wouldn't buy one if I could because the dual monitor setup I have + a mini projector > modern TV nonsense. My projector isn't anything fancy-- just a 720p bulb projector but I'm convinced that 4K, maybe/probably 8K laser projectors will be the endgame for many people, simply because at that point the resolution to screen size ratio for most people will be where the law of diminishing returns really starts to kick in.

In 2024, nearly 60% of Steam users are still using 1080p monitors-- myself included. The shift for the average person from 1080p to 4K is taking considerably longer than the shift from 720p to 1080p. 1080p came out in 2007, 4K came out in 2012. Only a 5 year difference but 1080p remains king for the time being specifically because 4K is too expensive for the average person and harder to justify, particularly for computer monitors.

For TVs, I think there's always going to be the core chunk of people who just mindlessly buy smart TVs without putting any thought into privacy but I really do think that long term, we're going to see a shift towards laser projectors that just accept video inputs from whatever source a person's using, i.e. a Kodi box, PC, etc. Part of why I think this is because laser projection even during daytime is amazing.

I'm rambling away but yeah, I think at a certain point between the ads and the fact that most people don't care that much about 4K over 1080p (especially considering the enormous price difference), people are going to tap out soon.

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